The dream program, windsor union sq, june, july, august, 2016

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The Village Mentoring Organization

Windsor/Union Square –DREAM Quarterly Report June – August 2016 Greetings from DREAM! The Windsor/Union Square DREAM program has finished up another wonderful semester of activities. Here is a summary of all the Windsor/Union Square DREAM happenings from the last quarter.

Highlights from the quarter include:  This quarter the mentees said good-bye to their mentors for a few weeks.  DREAM mentee Brianna, got to watch the Dartmouth mentors graduate.  Jayson and Sydney also were able to attend graduation with their families.

Sydney and Jayson brought gifts for their mentors!  Mentors went to Union Square for community dinner. A DREAM family cooked dinner for the entire group.  The mentors ended the summer by bringing the mentees to Ice Cream 4-U for an afternoon of mini-golfing and an ice cream cone!  Mona Abdelghani, Summer Community member, ran programming daily with youth. She brought youth swimming, on outdoor adventures, and served summer lunches!  We partnered with Willing Hands throughout the summer to provide the youth with cooking classes. Willing Hands showed the kids how to cook meals with the produce provided by the weekly food donation.  Summer community members and PED held an ice cream party for all the youth and families at Windsor Village.  For an end of summer trip summer community members and PED took the teens to Blitz Park in Portsmouth, NH and then spent the afternoon at Hampton Beach!

Weekly Programming:  The mentees went to the Willing Hands community garden twice in the summer to pick peas, carrots, potatoes, and blueberries. The youth got to work alongside the volunteers, learn about where their produce comes from, and of course eat fresh veggies while they worked!  Mentees played games on the green with their mentors!  Summer community members took the youth swimming at Kennedy Pond on several occasions.  Summer community members did a tie-dye project with all the youth at Windsor Village.

Office: 30 Community Drive, South Burlington, VT | Mail: P.O. Box 361, Winooski, VT 05404 │ (802) 338-8979 | info@dreamprogram.org

Special Events for Children and Mentors:  This summer Vermont Technical College hosted 9 Vermont DREAM teens for their week long college road trip. Over the course of the week the teens stayed in dorms at VT Tech and traveled around visiting the following schools: Northland Job Corps, Aveda Beauty School, New England Culinary Institute, University of Vermont, St. Michaels College, Champlain College, and Community College of Vermont-Montpelier. During the week 5 Philadelphia DREAM teens stopped by during their college road trip, joining forces with the Vermont teens for 2 days.

The group also partnered with CCV to take a real college course on College Readiness topics! To celebrate the end of a week of hard work the group spent the weekend at the beach in Maine.  This summer a group of Vermont teens spent a week at Camp DREAM acting as our first ever teen Trail Crew. Over the course of the week the teens helped with building and maintenance projects at Camp DREAM, interspersed with swimming, games, and fun!  For the fourth summer in a row DREAM partnered with Captain John Reid for two week long sailing trips off to coast of Maine. During the trip the teens learned how to sail and about living aboard a sailboat, and had lots of bonding/fun time!

Capacity Building and Fundraising:  DREAM had a very successful summer appeal this year, raising over $60K!  DREAM was excited to receive $15,000 donation from Merchants Bank for general operations in Vermont. Staff were presented a giant check at a Lake Monsters Game in August!  DREAM received a $5,000 grant from the Redducs Foundation to support the 2017 Camp DREAM Trail Crew! This means DREAM will be able to host another teen trail crew next year, replicating our success this summer!

Camp:  Camp DREAM is under construction! We are currently building a large lodge, which will have a large gathering space, a nurses station, and a commercial kitchen. Additionally, we are building a bath house that will have composting toilets and, after over 10 years without, SHOWERS!  DREAM was excited to be awarded an AmeriCorps NCCC crew to help work on construction at Camp DREAM for one month.

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Because Camp DREAM was under construction, DREAM partnered with Camp Abnaki and hosted one giant session of camp for all DREAMers there. We had a total of 94 kids and CITs at camp DREAM, and around 50 staff, a record DREAM gathering! Kids loved using the Abnaki facilities, which included a beautiful waterfront, canoes and kayaks, fire rings and S’mores, human foosball, and more!

Teens Accomplishments:  DREAM is excited to share some awesome accomplishments of some of our teens this quarter! o One teen received the Horace Greeley Scholarship for college, which is given to only 2 Vermont High School students each year! He will be starting classes at Community College of Vermont this Fall-he got full financial aid and scholarships and won’t be paying anything out of pocket!  Another teen is following her passion of working with hair and is starting at New England School of Hair and Design this fall.  Lastly, one teen graduated High School one year early and starts at Johnson State College as a psychology major this fall.  We apologize to any of our wonderful teens who’s accomplishments we missed in this section! They do so many wonderful things it’s hard to track them all.

Office:  This quarter our wonderful Rutland Program Empowerment Director, Tiffany Trowbridge-Bernard, wrapped up her service term. She will be replaced in September by Megan Greiling. Megan hails from a town north of Indianapolis, IN and graduated from Indiana University with a B.S. in Public Affairs. New to DREAM and new to Vermont, Megan is super pumped to learn all about her Programs and all about the Vermont communities each program serves.

Thank you for your ongoing support of DREAM. If you would like additional or more detailed information, please contact me by email or by phone. You can always look back at past reports or other programs’ reports by going to: http://dreamprogram.org/mentor-program/vermont/local-program-reports.

DREAM big, Kylie Edwards Program Empowerment Director, VYT AmeriCorps VISTA kylie@dreamprogram.org, 802.338.8936